Fair Elections Utah
Working to improve, but not gut, our neighborhood election caucus system.
The Caucus System in Utah is the best way to make sure a grass roots process can work over large amounts of money. It is the only way someone with $100,000 can go against someone with $2,000,000 in election funds. We have a system that does NOT favor the incumbent, wealthy or famous. This is a good thing.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

The Utah Democratic Party has been picking their US Presidential Nominee at the neighborhood caucus night in 2008 and 2012.

I have for many years asked the Utah Republican State Central Committee as a member of that body to do the same.

Count My Vote demanded that we needed to deal with Fire Fighters and Doctors and Mom's with sick kids being able to vote at our GOP neighborhood caucus night. It took longer than they wanted us to but we did do that.

Now, SB54 passed less than one year ago demands we change the way delegates can vote at convention, or requires us to double the number of seats, with the backup delegate there just in case, and to have all 29 counties and state conventions in less than 2 weeks.

Not only that, but SB54 includes items Count My Vote didn't because of constitution questions.

The legislature has been for 5 or more years trying to fix the state school board voting and will likely do it this year. It took 4 or more sessions to fix the disorderly conduct gun bill.

Providing time for the court to find out "where is the line" and see if is even possible to deal with 2014 SB 54 at the county and state levels is smart.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

How did we get to the point where
the Utah GOP is suing the State of Utah when most of those that supported 2014 SB 54
were Republicans?

Pretty simple. The future Count
My Vote backers showed up to conventions and picnics in 2009 (Jowers and Doug
Wright for example). People at the time were tired of being over taxed and the
Feds trampling our rights, (same as today). The delegates didn't fawn over them
at the time and then Tim Bridgewater beat Sen. Bennett at convention in May of
2010 (yes Mike Lee squeaked out as well) and the backers met at the Alta Club
and decided they wanted to get rid of the current system. Sen. Bennett backed
Tim Bridgewater for the 2010 Primary, but Mike Lee won. Professors at both BYU
and UofU plus Doug Wright have been blasting the caucus/convention system ever
since. Some had been blasting it already when Gov. Walker got in the 2004 race
too late and lost.

When polls and stats (Y2/BYU) showed
Sen. Bennett would have lost even with the 2012 "Hatch" delegates
they (the CMV backers) decided to work on changing the delegate voting
threshold and "other" changes by threatening demands from the outside
the Party.

When those changes failed (other changes later passed, such as helping fire fighters, etc. vote), they launched Count My Vote. They used a deceptive and poorly
written "bill" and legal analysis from a DC lobbyist expert and had
trouble getting the signatures in several parts of the state as required. They
hired a group to help who violated the laws and official complaints were filed
against them. So they compromised with the Utah Legislature directly, bypassing
the Parties, and got things they didn't even try to get with CMV because they
thought they would lose in court.

Members of the Utah Legislature believed CMV would still get the signatures and already had the media and so
agreed with the compromise. When the party announced just before the grand
Compromise in March 2014 that they would protect their rights and that at least
CMV violated their rights - people ignored them. When almost 4000 state
delegate said we should protect our rights against SB 54 in April of 2014
people ignored that as well. So when the Party did sue in Dec of 2014 people
wondered why.

In a soon to be released counter brief it was discovered that Count My Vote / Buy My Vote based part of their argument on a minority opinion form the SCOTUS and not the majority opinion. It shows that the Legal Brief put out by Count My Vote to be as flawed as the proposed law. Not only is the conflicting sections in Count My Vote going to give a judge pause and kick it back to the Utah Legislature to fix, and the 2% system obviously not treating candidates from different parties equally, but the whole premise of Count My Vote being able to stand up to the courts is flawed.

The complaint outlines four accusations, which include the following:
1 – Only one of eight corporate donors for Count My Vote has filed
the required financial disclosures with the Lt. Governor’s Office.
2 – Washington County School District member emailed Count My Vote materials from a school email account during school hours.
3 – Count My Vote signature collectors have, on documented occasions,
verbally misrepresented the nature of initiative, going so far as to
completely lie about it.
4 – Count My Vote petitions were allegedly left unattended in public
places, which could have allowed anyone to sign without first having
their identity verified.
What did

Count My Vote do? They pulled in more money, this time from Sen. Orin Hatch, and they called in Mitt Romney, who likely was just acting at the request of Mike Leavitt.

It is in doubt that Mitt Romney is up to speed on the flaws of Count My Vote:

"They have scheduled four of their seven public statewide meetings at
noon during the week with two of those during a special session of the
Legislature," said Fred Cox, a former state representative and opponent
of the Count My Vote movement. "They also scheduled two of the required
regional public meetings during UEA (Utah Education Association), so
they don't seem to want the UEA teachers or their invited parents to
attend."

Their Press Conference tomorrow is during the State GOP Central Committee meeting so that none of the GOP Party Leaders could be there.

Count
My Vote: a Lexus lane to the ballot for the rich and famous. Always has
been. With the proposed compromise it is just more obvious.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

2014 SB 54 Elections Amendments

[update this is for Sub. 1 SB 54. Sub 2 has different requirements]

2014
SB 54 Elections Amendments, A proposal for the Utah Legislature to
adopt Count My Vote, prior to knowing if they get enough signatures, and
prior to a vote in November if they do. It provides exceptions, one of
which would ruin the Same Day Ballot that the GOP is adding to increase
participation for Neighborhood Caucus Election night.

Many citizens who attend their neighborhood elections and caucus meeting
become interested in politics and get involved in their communities,
the state and the nation. They meet and help candidates become elected.
Some then later become candidates. This should be encouraged through
education. SB 54, lines 796 to 800 ruins that and should be amended.

Again,
we need to amend it to allow greater participation by those that are
new to the process. Delete lines 796 to 800. This will allow someone new
to run the night of the meeting. We have and should have incentives to
file and run for delegate or precinct chair prior to the meeting, but as
drafted, the bill reduces participation.

For
purposed of reviewing Sen. Brambles 2014 SB 54 bill, and to allow the
Count My Vote language to be put directly in statute with an exception
to parties that qualify for the 4 items covered in the bill, I am
willing to temporarily look past many of the flaws from the initiative,
since they may not apply. See:

I
am opposed to changing the system we have to allow unaffiliated voters
to affiliate the day of election. It has proven to decrease cross voting
during a primary and still allow individuals to vote. I believe that
requirement, "allow unaffiliated voters to affiliate the day of
election" could be part of SB 54 on lines 792 to 793.

As you know, I am not in favor of changing the threshold percentage to avoid a primary.

I have no problem with electing alternate delegates, and we currently allow counties to do so.

If Lines 796 to 800, were modified to allow our Same Day Ballot to meet the requirements of lines 794 and 795,

we might have a bill to work with.

To replace the the threshold percentage item, the following items could be discussed:

legal notice requirements for caucus and convention and require election day affiliation for UAF so that law Isn't removed later. We could add voter info protection and remove straight party voting in the general. We
could also fix the check a buck program so it comes out of the taxes of
the person that checked the box instead of everyone else.

The final point is the bills timing. It is a big risk. See the critical dates from March 1st to May 15th.

Notice the bill would have to pass the legislature, both houses by March 13.

The Governor has until April 2 to sign or veto it.

The legislature has until May 12, to override a veto.

Count My Vote has until April 15 to get the signatures they need.

The
county clerks have until May 1st to the 15th to verify the signatures
and turn them in to the Lt. Gov. those that have requested to be
removed.

The Lt. Gov. has until June 1st to decide if the number of signatures meets the law.

We
do not know if between March 13th and April 15th if the number of
signatures coming in will increase or decrease if the bill passes. It
could either add fire to their initiative or crush it. It is a risky
move.

In
a nutshell, 2014 SB 54 lines 796 to 800 must be amended or deleted
before we even have something to discuss. (The 2 day requirement) it
isn't the 48 hours it is the other requirements.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

All Utahns
deserve the opportunity to understand the drastic changes that are being
proposed to our election system and how these changes will impact YOU.
Count My Vote (CMV) is an initiative to change from our current
Neighborhood Caucus Election system to a Direct Primary. One consequence
of this would be to give big money and lobbyists a much more dominant
role in Utah’s elections.

A diverse group of concerned
volunteers from throughout the state has produced a presentation about
the proposed changes. Please take a minute to view the presentation to better inform yourself about this issue and the consequences of enacting the proposed legislation.

Please
share this information with those you know. It is critical that people
understand the ramifications of signing the Count My Vote petition, and
that they know how to remove their signature if they have already signed it.

The
bunch of people that they had say the "bill" was constitutional, only
said that based on one primary argument: Could the state force the
parties to change their system based on the proposed "bill"?

They
(Count My Vote) don't seem to want people to read it. Just sign it and vote on it
later. The purpose of getting that many people to sign it is to make
sure, since they are bypassing the legislature, that the "bill" gets
vetted. We get ticked at congress if they don't read what they are
voting on.

CMV intentionally made it hard for anyone to come to
the public hearings, and almost no one would have come if we didn't
invite them. They then had a chance to amend their proposed law and they
didn't.

Now they hope some legislator can bail them out and
change the law, but they can't back off because, I believe, they have
told the education community that if CMV passes, they will use it to
change the legislature so taxes are raised and education gets more
money.

They have told others, I have heard, that CMV will allow
certain candidates that "can't" win under the current system, to win,
and those are helping to pull in the big bucks for them so their
candidates get elected in 2016.

98% of all the money raised,
$851,201.50 this year and before comes in contributions of $2,500 or
more, much of it $25,000. 92% of all money raised came from 34 donors. 7
of 8 corporations donating to Count My Vote's PIC have not filed with
the state as required by state law.

And Count My Vote is worried about 20,000 state and county delegates
from the different parties that are elected by 150,000 voters? Perhaps we should worry about the 34
that are doing most of the funding of Count My Vote?

Who to donate to

Fair Elections Utah is a dba. Any minor cost is being paid out of pocket. It is not a PIC and doesn't accept donations.
Those that want to donate should find a Utah Political Issues Committee (PIC) to donate to.